Last year, when BIG unveiled its fantastical ski resort on top of a waste-to-energy incinerator plant in Copenhagen, we were admittedly intrigued. But we weren’t at all surprised when the City of Copenhagen denied the project yesterday because they believe it will damage the climate and environment. Although the double duty concept sounded fun, in reality the incinerator plant was going to be enlarged meaning increasing the amount of trash burned and CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere. Even though the incinerator plant is desperately in need of a renovation, the city wants to encourage waste reduction, reuse and recycling instead of burning more trash and having a sexy ski slope.

According to Politiken, yesterday the City of Copenhagen said no to a loan guarantee of 4 billion dollars for the project because they believe it to be detrimental to the environment. The project called for the Amagerforbrænding incinerator plant’s capacity to increase by 30% to 560,000 tons of waste annually, which would increase CO2 emissions from 140,000 to 200,000 tons annually. Instead of burning more trash, the city would like to focus on technologies and policies that more efficiently manage waste.

Nevertheless, the incinerator plant is still in need of a renovation and the city’s denial will push the project way behind schedule. This also means that the money spent on designing the plant was wasted, but could still be incorporated into a smaller and more efficient incinerator plant. Although the project is not completely dead in the water, there seems to be only a slight chance that BIG’s grand vision for a ski resort in Copenhagen could become a reality. Politiken reports that if it were to happen, the ski resort and the incinerator plant would be much smaller than originally planned.